Magician
Magicians (often called mages for short) are intelligence casters and master summoners, able to call elemental pets to do their bidding and to conjure useful items from thin air. Magicians are primarily a magic-using class, with the ability to wear cloth armour and wield blunt weapons and daggers. Elemental pets are at the heart of a magician's offensive strategy, and typically accompany a magician in all his adventures. This pet provides protection for its master, along with powerful attacks and special abilities. Magicians have a large selection of fire- and magic-based direct damage spells, allowing them to mount a deadly magical assault in support of their elemental pet. Magicians have a wide range of item summoning spells, allowing them to conjure such diverse items as mana regen items, food, weapons, armour, and magical jewellery. Many of these pieces of summoned equipment can be given to pets to enhance their power, a practice which can be used to enhance other players' pets as well as the magician's own. In battle, the magician can encase his entire group in a shield of fire, damaging any opponent that strikes them. Magicians also have spells that lower a monster's resistance to magic, allowing spells to damage them more easily. Magicians are a very focused class, sacrificing some diversity for power in their area of expertise. Magicians are able to adventure solo, but they also provide value in group and raid situations. The magician is a good choice for players who enjoy managing a powerful pet and using a tightly focused spell selection. Strengths and Weaknesses Magicians are the most pet-dependent class in the game, both for better and for worse. The following are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the class: Strengths *'The elemental pet.' The four types of magician pets are specialists who are the strongest pets in the game at the jobs they respectively do. In the right contexts, air and earth pets are entirely capable of serving as tanks for ranged DPS groups (making magicians an arguable "hidden" fourth tanking class for group content), and water and fire pets both have focused abilities for dealing DPS. *'Reliable tanking and DPS for winning fights that go according to plan.' At any level range, a prepared magician who is paying attention and sets up fights correctly can take on a wide variety of foes while soloing or moloing, and most of the abilities required to do so effectively either have short cooldowns or are available to be used at will. The base power level of the class is strong. *'Varied and powerful swarm pets.' At level 61+, magicians begin to gain access to various swarm pets through AA purchases and spells. Each type of these pets is on a separate cooldown timer and provide situational DPS, offtanking, or both. When the elemental alone isn't enough to get the job done, the magician has reserves. *'Unique utility for moving allies around.' Magicians (of level 55+) are the only class with access to the Call of the Hero ability, which can make moving a party around a zone much easier. *'Bane spells usable against summoned creatures.' Magicians excel at efficiently dealing damage to summoned creatures that oppose them. At level 60+, magicians may also purchase Theft of Essence, a passive AA that allows the elemental pet a chance to receive a mana-free heal and defensive buff each time its master casts a summoned-bane damage spell. These abilities give the magician, which is already an effective soloing/moloing class, an even stronger than usual niche when adventuring in areas with many summoned creatures. Weaknesses *'Splitting mobs when fighting alone or only with a merc.' Other than the earth elemental's root ability (which is unreliable) and the level 59+ AA ability Companion of Necessity (which has a 10 minute cooldown), magicians have no real tools for splitting mobs. While there are options for offtanking adds using swarm pets and clever ways to use an earth elemental's root spell for in-combat crowd control, these are usually only temporary stalling maneuvers, which means the magician may still be in trouble if it isn't possible to blow up at least one of the mobs in a hurry. *'Emergencies and other unpleasant surprises.' Magicians possess many tools for methodically preparing reliable tanking and DPS, either when moloing or in a party, but they have relatively few tools for recovering from being caught off guard. At high levels, it is entirely possible for a magician who catches proximity aggro while sitting to get stunned and killed before having much (if any) chance to react. *'Moloing in areas with a high mob density, in general,' because of the reasons already mentioned above. (Note that this indeed isn't a weakness as much in a group, and may actually be a good place to bring a magician along, since the pet can often be used to offtank adds.) *'Issues with reliably tanking for a party. If the magician dies, the pet ''also instantly dies, and the party has a loose mob on its hands.' This caveat is true of all pets, but since magician pets are the pet most often called upon to tank for a ranged group, (pets cannot tank with players in melee range) this is important to consider. Encounters where the magician is likely to die to adds or to AoE spells can make such a pet tanking strategy more dangerous. *'General dependence on preparing a lot for combat.' Magicians have more things that they need to summon, click, check, buff, equip, and prepare before going adventuring than any other class, and the necessity of redoing many of these preparations after a death (or the death of a pet) can become a source of frustration, particularly when trying to explore a new area for the first time or when pushing one's way into challenging content. (This is the less pleasant flip-side of the magician's strength when fights ''are adequately prepared for and properly executed.) *'A sometimes too-flat power curve.' While the base power of the magician class is high (elemental pets out-of-the-box are quite impressive, and magician damage spells are generally adequate), the class does not scale as potently with equipment as many other DPS or tanking classes do. * Unable to slow enemies. M'''agicians are the only pet class who lack spells or AA's designed to slow. Combat Skills Magic Skills Tradeskills Language Skills Other Skills''' See Also Magician Spells, Disciplines, and Abilities List category: stub Category:Class Category:Character Creation